# Banning And Punishment Policy ##### Definitions **Warning/Low-Severity Note**: Informal warning given to a player for any reason, usually when a minor rule has been broken or was almost broken. **Strike/Medium-Severity Note**: Permanent, formal warning given to a player when a rule has been broken. Strikes should always be clearly communicated to their recipient. When receiving their third strike (or more), they should instead receive a ban. Admins may use their own discretion to ban a player before three strikes are reached if their actions are deemed as bad faith, malicious, or in violation of a zero-tolerance policy. A third strike should \*\*always\*\* result in a ban. **Ban**: Temporary exclusion of a player from an aspect of the game, reserved as punishment for failing to follow server rules. This includes game bans and role bans, which may be either timed/temporary or permanent/appeal-only. **Game Ban:** Ban from all game functions, including connection to the game lobby. **Role Ban**: Ban from being able to join the game as selected roles. **Temporary Ban**: A timed ban, usually in the range of a few hours (“take a break”), 24-72 hours, 1-2 weeks, or a month. Generally, if a ban in excess of a month is being considered, it should be appeal-only instead. **Appeal-only Ban**: Permanent ban which can only be removed through an appeal through the ticket system in the discord. ##### Handling rule breaks When dealing with potential rule breaks, admins are expected to take the necessary steps to get an overview of the situation. This includes asking for context from other admins who may have witnessed what happened, reading game logs, or ahelping involved players. Players found to have broken a rule should be contacted via an ahelp and questioned on the situation. After doing so, the ruling admin may choose how to proceed. They may issue a warning, strike, or ban. All admin intervention, including benign warnings, should be permanently and publicly noted once concluded, unless special circumstances arise. Secret notes should be used sparingly, as they are very hard to act upon later in a way that affords players a complete understanding of why admin action was taken. ##### Using Notes All admin actions should be followed by a note. There is no format saying what to put in the note, but it is encouraged to be as detailed as possible. Information on what kind of warning was issued, what was told to them and what their reaction was is very useful. **Low severity notes** refer to rule breaks which are not considered strikes. The ruling admin may choose to administer those instead of a medium severity note if they do not believe that the infraction is considered significant enough to administer a strike over. **Medium severity notes** are strikes. On the third strike, the ruling admin is heavily encouraged to ban the player instead. **High severity notes** are reserved for bans. **Message notes** are severity-agnostic and by default expire after a week. Message notes do not replace regular notes, but may accompany a note if the player could not be contacted regularly due to having disconnected. **Watchlists** are severity-agnostic \*secret\* notes used for inter-administrator communication, usually to inform others of potential problem players. If an administrator notices fishy behavior or suspects that a rule may have been consistently broken, they may decide to administer a watchlist. When a player joins the server, the contents of the watchlist note will appear alongside the join notice adminside. ##### Note Format As an example, a note can typically follow this format: ```text (Round Number) (Rules broken/Ahelp topic) As a (non-antagonist/antagonist) (relevant role), thing they did that broke a rule. This is what they were spoken to about in the ahelp, what was suggested, and if they were receptive/how they responded. ``` It's absolutely up to your discretion if you want to use this format or a different one, so long as enough information is provided for future reference. As a minimum, try and include the round number, the rule, the issue, and the resolution. ##### Administering Strikes If a player breaks a server rule, the ruling admin may decide to issue a strike. If this would be their third strike (or more), a ban should be administered instead. When assigning a strike, the ruling admin must inform the player that they have been officially warned. Contacting the player should be done through the game, either via ahelps or through a message note if they have disconnected from the server. When informing a player that they have received a warning, the ruling admin should also provide which rule has been broken and ask the player to re-read our rules. If the player has received their third strike or more and has not been banned, they should be made aware of that fact. Infractions might not be recorded as strikes if the ruling admin does not believe that the broken rule is of significance, or if it would be unfair to do so, such as if the infraction would not reasonably have been noticed without the person ahelping themselves. If this is the case, a low-severity note should still be created. Infractions may lead directly to a ban if the ruling admin has strong reason to believe that the rule was broken out of malice, or if a zero-tolerance rule/the golden rule was broken. ##### Administering Bans If a player breaks a server rule and has either already been banned prior or has received at least 2 strikes, the ruling admin may decide to issue a ban. When assigning a ban, the ruling admin must include the ban reason and the rules broken in the ban message. If this is an appeal-only ban, where to appeal should be included as well. This may be omitted if banning the player is urgent. All bans should have their reason and the rules broken communicated to the offending player. Contacting the player should be done through the game, either via ahelps or through a message note if they have disconnected from the server. ##### Ban Times There is no ban time attributed to any given infraction - instead, when a rule is broken, the ruling admin makes a decision on the type and length of the ban based on their impression of the offending player. If a person’s rulebreaks are all related to a specific job or set of jobs, it is recommended to administer a role ban. For small infractions which did not affect or barely impacted the enjoyment of other players, and where the player is understanding, minor 2-8 hour bans may be given. Those bans are designed to force the player to take some time off, which would allow them to read the rules. For infractions which negatively impacted a good part of the server, longer bans should be applied. These times are highly variable and can range from 12-48 hours for low severity actions, 2-7 days for medium severity actions, and anywhere from a week to a month for high severity actions. Bans lasting over a month should generally be appeal-only. If a player’s actions are malicious beyond reasonable doubt, or if they broke a zero-tolerance rule, administering an appeal-only ban is recommended. Each subsequent ban a player receives should be longer than the previous ones, eventually leading to an appeal-only ban with enough infractions. ##### TLDR In a nutshell, a strike is just an official warning. When someone breaks a rule, if you think that it was bad enough that they should face consequences, that is strike worthy. Otherwise, a simple warning should be issued. \- Player has broken a rule, but you do not believe they should get punished for it - Warning, Low severity note. \- Player has broken a rule, and you believe they should get punished for it - Strike, Medium severity note. Player is told they were warned and to read the rules. \- Player has broken a rule, should be punished, and already has 2 or more strikes (Medium severity notes) or a ban (High severity note) - Game or Role ban, High severity note.